The Camp

by Guy N Smith

  ‘Just a little interruption.’ Dolman saw that his visitor had noticed the trail of blood across the floor. ‘Nothing to worry us.’

  ‘Nothing worries me,’ self-assurance rather than a vain boast, ‘the lads are ready, I can’t hold them back any longer.’

  ‘Tomorrow night …’

  ‘Tonight!’ Smith smiled grimly, ‘within the hour. They won’t wait any longer.’

  ‘But we have to unlock the barriers …’

  ‘Done!’ The younger man held up a key and laughed. ‘I persuaded Uncle Arthur to get his finger out. The lads have been stockpiling their weapons all day. The bloke at the garage has made a fortune out of moped riders with jerrycans and most of the empty bottles from behind the restaurant have been nicked. Crates of ’em and nobody saw ’em go, or if they did they didn’t latch on. Crossbows, catapults, nail bombs, Jesus it’s going to be a party when it gets into full swing!’

  Dolman tried to hide his unease. Suddenly everything was going too fast for him. There was resentment in his expression as he looked at the other; this kid was trying to steal his thunder, it would go down as a Group 748 riot. It was not the working man who was rebelling, it was kids, yobs who had never worked and didn’t want to. Anarchy of a different kind.

  ‘I shall make a call to Fleet Street tomorrow,’ it was as if Smith could read his thoughts, had David Dolman shuddering, ‘just in case they jump to conclusions. You know, blame the National Front, I’m getting sick of that. This is our show and there’s going to be a lot of folks hurt, a few killed with a bit of luck. And with an even bigger bit of luck there’s going to be a few dead pigs in amongst them.’ There was a fanaticism in the voice now, an escalating shrillness. ‘You already made a start, I see.’ John Smith had followed the blood streaks on the polished wooden floor, stood looking behind the altar. ‘Two of ’em! What you goin’ to do incinerate ’em?’

  Sod it, I can’t go into details. ‘No, I just stuck ’em with the rubbish for now. I’ll think what to do with ’em later.’

  ‘Easy.’ As if by sleight of hand a cheap throwaway lighter appeared in his fingers, he flicked the flame extinguished it. ‘There’s goin’ to be fires all over the place tonight.’

  ‘Hold it, we haven’t started yet.’

  ‘This place would make a good beacon, the signal to the lads.’ Smith flicked his lighter again. ‘I like fires.’

  They both turned instinctively, knew that they were not alone although they had not heard the door open. The newcomer had got as far as the bottom of the altar steps, stood there with his hands in the pockets of a brown leather jacket, was positioned so that his face was in shadow. An outline, short-cropped hair, the whiteness of his teeth showing as he smiled.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ John Smith asked.

  There was no reply, just a rustle of leather as a hand was withdrawn and Dolman’s stomach churned as he recognised the outline of an automatic pistol, the barrel trained unwaveringly on himself.

  A phut, like an uncouth adolescent spitting in the street. John Smith thought that his companion’s head had exploded, a cerebral attack that split the forehead splattered blood down the lean features. He watched fixedly as Dolman swayed and then, without warning, everything went out for him, too.

  Muliman dropped the pistol back into his pocket and walked forward. Smith and Dolman lay sprawled together, a kind of macabre embrace as though even in death they clung to each other. Using the toe of his suede shoe he parted them, began to drag the younger man first, following that blood trail up to the altar and around it.

  He glanced at the corpses in the alcove, added a third, went back for the fourth. This place is like a bloody mortuary, he thought. No, correction, a crematorium. These crazy campers made it easy for you.

  He paused, surveyed his handiwork, a pile of bodies, the funeral pyre waiting to be lit. Dolman had been no problem, he could have taken him earlier but he had bided his time and it had paid off. The police had been trying to pin John Smith down for a long time, now he would just disappear from the scene.

  Muliman struck a match, held it against the paper, savoured the moment, the finishing touch that was always so satisfactory to the true professional. He turned, walked towards the door, already channelling his thoughts on Beebee. In the morning he would go and see Commander, report that the assignments were all completed. There would be another, there always was.

  As he stepped outside he heard the shouting and screaming, the fiery explosion of the first petrol bomb illuminating the night sky. He pressed himself back into the shadows, felt the blood begin to course hotly through his veins. His nostrils flared; the killing machine was revving up into top gear, that brief period of self-satisfaction was gone. This had the promise of a night of nights, action such as he had not seen since his days in Angola.

  Then the darkness swallowed Muliman up as he headed in the direction of the rioting.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Ann Stackhouse recoiled from the expression on Jeff Beebee’s face rather than the shock of finding him standing outside the door of Morton’s chalet. Gone was the geniality, the kindness, and in their place a hardness, an anger. Tight-lipped, eyes that narrowed and smouldered as hurt fuelled the fires of hate within him.

  ‘Jeff!’ It couldn’t be, he wouldn’t know where to find her. Another place, another time, but not here right now.

  ‘I’m a sucker,’ his foot was against the door, his knee pushing it slowly inward, ‘twice in a fortnight and that takes some beating! The hanger-on, the second string, the guy who’s there as a stand-in when lovers have a tiff.’

  ‘You don’t understand.’ He didn’t, he never would, it was futile to try and make him. ‘I can explain everything …’

  ‘Sure, you can.’ He squeezed through the gap, she let go of the door and it bounced back against the wall. ‘I’ve got a copy of the script. You’re having it off with the boss man, and he’s too good a thing to let go of. But you want to have your cake and eat it so you need a younger guy in tow. But it’s all fallen apart.’

  ‘How did you find me?’ It didn’t really matter because he had.

  ‘Elementary, my dear Watson,’ he sneered, kicked the door closed. ‘You weren’t at home so you had to be with the boss, and where else to find the boss except in the luxury chalets reserved for camp personnel? Just six of ’em, so take ’em one at a time, but I didn’t need to because there was only one with the lights on. Satisfied?’

  ‘I’d like to explain.’ She was white and trembling, glancing back towards the doors of the adjacent rooms. ‘I guess I’d better tell you the lot, it won’t make much difference now.’

  ‘Too right it won’t,’ he reached out, unlatched the door, ‘like I said, I’ve got the script. Don’t try to make even more of a fool of me with more lies.’

  ‘No, Jeff, please!’ She tried to stop him but he pushed her away, was framed angrily in the lighted doorway.

  And from the bedroom came a shout, a plea of desperation in a cracked voice. ‘Ann, are you coming to bed? I’m waiting for you.’

  ‘Go and get yourself shagged!’ Jeff Beebee grunted, staggered away into the road, a bent and broken figure.

  And at that moment a series of muffled explosions boomed from somewhere in the very heart of the holiday camp.

  ‘When I say “draw”, draw. Or else get outta town!’

  The gunfighter faced a bunch of youths with cropped heads, defiance on his scowling countenance; gimlet eyes that seemed to recognise that he was outnumbered. Fearless to the end, relishing the last showdown. ‘Draw!’

  His hand went to his holstered .45, dragged it clear, picked out the one immediately in front of him. But even as the barrel came upwards there was a crash of breaking glass and the figure erupted in a pillar of flame. Still hating, the hard-bitten face melting instantly. Liquid bitterness, spurning defeat in the fires of hell, the neon sign above registering a MISS before it cut out.

  Screams and then a stampede of game-pla
yers, a panic-stricken rush for the fire exit at the far end. Children were knocked down, trodden on, the crowd surging towards the escape route but before the bar on the steel fireproof door could be lifted something shattered against it and a pall of fire leaped up to the ceiling. Flames that raged, hungry for human flesh, devoured the cables that trailed behind the rows of machines. A roaring that drowned human cries of terror.

  Almost simultaneously with the gunfighter’s challenge to his adversaries, the bingo caller in the hall directly opposite had called 13. ‘Thirteen, unlucky for some.’ The glass door had been pushed open, his hand groped for the switch which would inform latecomers ‘GAME IN PROGRESS’ when the petrol bomb hit his rostrum. He was thrown upwards, a Guy Fawkes with a firework secreted in his tattered clothing. A fiery spectacle, denuded and charring, screaming through burning lips. Glass shattering all around, a huge fireball that travelled the length of the oblong room sweeping its victims before it on a tidal wave of flame. Outside padding running feet, burning bottles being tossed through open doorways.

  The garage petrol pumps exploded, an orange comet that shot skywards, choking black smoke mushrooming. And out of the suffocating blackness charged a group of attackers, a spearhead of hatred and death converging on the crowded centre of the camp. Synchronized in groups of a dozen, they came from all directions, running fast and low, their deadly crossbows and catapults picking off their victims at random. Milling holidaymakers trapped between crossfires; a ball-bearing felled a child and as its screaming mother bent over it a crossbow bolt smashed her skull, hurled her back.

  The amusement arcade was blazing, those caught inside shrieking for help which would never come. A blinded man staggered into the ranks of the skinhead army, a swinging bicycle chain brought him down and then oversize boots crushed his skull to a scarlet mulch.

  Vehicles were coming in through the open barriers, stolen from the car park, gathering speed. Crowds scattered but knives and chains drove them back into the roadway; knocked down, run over, the writhing injured easy prey for the rampaging youths. Even the screaming and the raging inferno could not drown the war cry that was taken up from all quarters. ‘Here we go, here we go, here we go …’ The death chant and the massacre was only just gathering momentum.

  Muliman had ducked down behind the low stone wall surrounding the roller skating rink. A crouching beast of prey, he watched and waited, pistol in hand. Dull explosions, flames turning the sky a fiery red. Everybody screaming, the sound of running feet, coming this way.

  ‘Here we go … here we go … here we go …’

  A rearguard group of attackers, bent on cutting off the retreat of any holidaymakers fortunate enough to escape from the main assault, an ambush between the camp centre and the Yellow Camp chalets; fanning out, lining the walkways, merging into the shadows. Muliman heard the swish of swinging chains, the click of a crossbow being cocked. Muttered laughter.

  Bloody scum! He raised his automatic, took his time. The target game in the amusement arcade but this time for real. Twenty rounds a second if he wanted them; he didn’t, this was a game, life and death. A phut, inaudible in the din; he saw one of the youthsstraighten up, drop something which clattered on to the concrete, slump down. The others hadn’t noticed, it was like picking off rocks on a ploughed field with a silenced .22. A silhouette against a whitewashed background, another head shot. The victim remained standing for some seconds and the sniper half wondered if he had missed; then the legs buckled and the ambusher slid down into a heap.

  It was the fourth one who alerted the rest, stumbled out into the road, lay kicking on the tarmac, dead but the nerves reacting. Blast it!

  ‘What the fuck!’ Panic broke out, Muliman dropped another as they turned and fled, a spine shot that threw the skinhead down on to the hard road. This one would thresh for some minutes, leave him there as a warning to the others.

  The stampede back to the chalets was in full swing; people running, glancing back in fear of pursuit. Fathers carrying children, mothers shrieking hysterically. Muliman remained where he was watching them, saw how his last victim was trampled underfoot and after the crowd had gone didn’t move again. The coup de grâce, he would have preferred to administer it himself.

  Bee-bor, bee-bor, bee-bor. Flashing blue lights, police and ambulances preceding the fire engines, obstructed by corpses littering the camp roads, uniformed men on foot trying to clear the way, dragging the dead and wounded to one side. Another petrol bomb went off somewhere. The flames were taking hold now, sweeping from one building to the next. The indoor games hall was gutted, a brittle timber structure, beams falling, sparks showering like a gigantic firework display. Muliman walked to the end of the road, stood by the toilet block and derived some satisfaction from the sight of the blazing chapel. It was always nice to recognise your own handiwork amid the shambles created by others.

  There was no chance of finding Beebee in this lot, in all probability he was already dead. Muliman slipped another clip into his pistol, dropped it back into his pocket. His fingers caressed a length of steel wire, ran the noose. The thought was tempting, battles were raging everywhere. But maybe he had better check with Commander first.

  ‘Damn you!’ Commander reminded Muliman of a garden gnome which had suddenly been imbued with malignant life and no longer blended into the rockery background. ‘Damn you!’ And a third time, ‘Damn you!’

  It was a long time since the ex-mercenary had shifted uncomfortably, resisted the urge to fiddle with his hands. An awkwardness which was foreign to him, trying not to stand like a schoolboy being carpeted by his headmaster. For once the chiefs office looked a shambles as if he had been searching for something in a hurry, strewn his desk, scrabbled in drawers. An atmosphere of disquiet. When Commander was ruffled you were uneasy, tried to figure out where you stood in the pecking order.

  ‘What a stupid damfool thing to go and do!’ Commander raised a clenched fist, thought twice about thumping the desk. ‘All your excellent work undone. And how d’you think we’re going to cover this one up, corpses with bullets in them? Christ, they won’t even let the police use plastic or rubber bullets to quell a riot and now we’ve got dead yobbos with lead ones in ’em!’

  ‘I’ll collect ’em up,’ outwardly Muliman was still confident, ‘dispose of ’em.’

  ‘You should have thought of that before. Like you should have thought before you started pulling the trigger. Kill-crazy you are, Muliman. Loose in society you’d be a murderer. We saved you, legalised your bloodlust. And in return you’ve dropped us right in the shit.’

  No apology, Muliman’s expression remained impassive. Awaiting further orders. Commander took a deep breath, brought himself under control. ‘Well, you got Dolman, that’s something, even if it was too late. We were waiting for a worker’s revolt, instead we got this, the soccer hooligans’ summer festival! The media will have a birthday!’

  A pregnant silence, Commander had opened a file on his desk. A sheet of names, most of them deleted in red ink. The C-551 experiment had gone disastrously wrong, those that remained had to be silenced because there was no antidote. Remove all traces … as far as possible.

  In the distance they could still hear the rioting, more police and fire crews arriving. You smelled the burning, even in here.

  ‘Our own men are being instructed to leave the camp.’ The chief looked up, fatigue was beginning to stamp its mark on his face, etching the lines deeper. ‘From now on it’s in the hands of the regular police force, we can’t get involved. Christ knows how long it’ll take ’em to get everything under control. You couldn’t find a place further from a riot risk area than this; they don’t have the gear, it’ll have to be brought in and by that time there’ll be precious little left of the camp.’ Staring at Muliman wistfully, inwardly regretting that he was unable to send this man into the bloodbath. ‘They can’t pin it on us, yobs are yobs, it’s just those lead-filled bodies which worry me.’ The sting had gone out of his anger, he was functio
ning as the boss of the Department, the Service, again. Don’t waste mental energy fruitlessly.

  Muliman shifted his position, transferred his weight on to his other foot. The chief hadn’t sent for him just to bollock him, a sort of telepathic summons. Muliman could have run, like the rest of them.

  ‘Beebee may already be dead,’ Commander’s tone was devoid of expression now, ‘but we can’t chance it. But Morton’s the weak link. And Stackhouse. They’re going to run, squeal like pigs if they’re picked up. We can’t risk ’em.’

  Muliman nodded, the chief had taken a long time getting round to it. ‘I’ll find ’em,’ he said, ‘and Beebee, too.’

  ‘Good.’ A dismissive wave of the hand, then an afterthought, or at least it was made to seem like one, ‘Leave your gun, Muliman.’

  A moment’s confrontation, the gunfighter in the amusement arcade. Draw, or else get outta town. Muliman pulled the weapon from his pocket, laid it carefully on the desk and if your sense of smell was sharp enough you detected a faint whiff of cordite. An amnesty rather than a surrender, he turned away, dropped a hand back into his pocket; he still had his wire noose which was preferable to an automatic pistol any day.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  I’m awfully sorry if we’ve inconvenienced you. The grey uniformed guard stepped into the room with its bare, drab walls, made no attempt to close the door behind him. ‘There appears to have been a mistake. You’re free to go now.’